This is a frequently debated topic in the social media space. Yesterday when I was at the Social Media Club event in San Francisco the debate was who owns social media in a corporation? Is it the marketing department, the PR department, the product department, etc. or is it a mix of all of them? While I don’t think there will ever be a unanimous consensus on that topic I still think it’s an interesting question to think about.
Perhaps companies can create social media budgets or departments that operate as their own entities? Or perhaps this is a decision that the companies themselves should figure out internally. Perhaps this depends on the goals of the company. All valid points but the problem comes into play when social media begins to leak from one department into another. As many of you know social media is very dynamic and can be used for a variety of things, so if you end up using social media strictly for PR and then the product department starts getting useful information, who pays? who takes the risk? who is rewarded? who is on the chopping block? How do you split up the budget?
Now you noodle on that for a while…
While this is an interesting topic, it is NOT the subject of this post. The topic of this post is “who owns social media”, but on a different scale. I’m talking about the person in charge of the social media campaigns/relationships vs the company the person works for. Let’s say I create a whole social media campaign over at Apple, I represent the company and I’m the one on the Apple twitter and facebook accounts interacting with and connecting with all of you. Does Apple own the social media campaign and the relationships that I have built or do I?
I think the answer to this question is neither and I’ll tell you why. The decision of “who owns social media” ultimately rests in the hands of the users and the customers that I have built the relationships with. Robert Scoble is a good example of this. Robert used to blog over at Microsoft and he had a pretty solid following there but when he left, so did the users. The users followed Robert over to his blog and his twitter account. So regardless of how hard Microsoft tried to keep the relationships, the ultimate choice was left with the users. It’s like dating someone you have a good connection with and then having them swap with someone else 6 months into the relationship, chances are you are going to stay with your original date.
This is why being in a social media role is so powerful. Regardless of what company you work for the social media connections and relationships you are building do not only represent the company you work for but also you as an individual, as a separate entity. If you connect with users and then shift roles, more often then not, your relationships are going to stay with you. This really is a powerful position to be in.
What’s your take on either topic:
who owns social media within a corporation (department)?
OR
who owns social media, the company, the creator, or the users?
thanks for reading
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